Innermost
by Lady Addiction
Summary: Kuroro means more to Pakunoda than people know.


_**INNERMOST  
By Lady Addiction  
**  
DISCLAIMER: HunterxHunter is a manga and anime that has absolutely nothing to do with me. I'm just borrowing the charactes and background for a writing exercise._

WARNINGS: OOCness?, Spoilers for OAV1, angsty fluffiness

PAIRINGS: Gen

  
**_AUTHOR NOTES:_**

1. Ryuuseigai is translated as Shooting Star City, but I'll use the Japanese name in this fic.

2. Yes, I know that I'm not following the official spelling and naming conventions, but I much prefer using the subbers' version. Names do play a slight role in this.  


WWWW

They had grown up together in a jumble of broken buildings and smelly trash. They lived in hovels, shadowed leftovers of somebody's old home where sunlight streamed in haphazardly and they were left bedding down with rats and spiders.

Ryuuseigai: home for the abandoned, the lost, the broken. In the middle of a barren wasteland where red sand scorched bare feet and indomitable sun burned bare skin, there was a place where civilization's trash ended up. Trash like the unfashionable toys of children, the wrecked furniture of adults, and the unwanted people of society.

But humans were humans, and in the midst of such wreckage, Ryuuseigai developed its own society. Here, where law did not deign step into, natural laws prevailed: kill or be killed; tricking outsiders was a necessity, tricking insiders was death; work or die; if you can't defend it, you have no right to it; and, so on.

She knew she was not born in Ryuuseigai. Sometime before, she recalled living in a good place high in the sky, where she looked down from a wall of glass and saw people running around like ants. She remembered wearing the softest clothes, eating good food, playing with the best toys. But those memories would inevitably lead her to the sight of the man she called father brought to his knees, surrounded by men in dark clothes. The sight of her mother sobbing and flailing as the two of them were dragged out of their beautiful home and thrown into a cold, grey cell that smelled of things that raised goosebumps along her skin. Then all would be blackness, until the day she woke up and found herself in Ryuuseigai, all alone.

She was seven years old.

She met Kuroro four months later.

_  
"Hiyo!" _

A soft whimper.

"Oi, oi, don't be so scared. See, I won't hurt you!"

"I'm Kuroro! What's your name?"

"P-Patricia. Patricia Noda."

" 'Patricia'? What an awful name! It doesn't suit you at all! I know! From now on, I'll call you 'Paku'! Now that's a better name for somebody in Ryuuseigai!"

" 'Paku'?"

A firm nod. "Now, come on, Paku! Frank said he has something good to show us!"

"Um, are you, are you sure it's okay?"

"Don't worry! You're one of us now!"  


For three short years, she never left his side, one of the many he had drawn in his wake. She had no real claim to him over any of the others, but that didn't matter. She was beside him all her days, and her world was perfect.

Then he left to try for the Hunter exam…and she was there, watching, crying, as the ten-year-old who won her heart forever trotted cockily away.

When he came back, three years had passed. She still rummaged in Ryuuseigai's dumps, earning her living with wit and hard work. She never forgot Kuroro, never even left the friends he had introduced her to. But she was different from them, those that had grown up in Ryuuseigai's squalor. She was quiet and shy, preferring to hide in unflattering clothes and unkempt hair. She wasn't Machi, brash and beautiful and confident, nor Franklin, large, calm and friendly, nor Feitan, sly, quick, and cruel. She hovered at the edges of that brilliant group, a member but never quite part of the team.

Then Kuroro came back. And her world was once more whole.

_  
I'm sorry I betrayed you. I know you're disgusted at my weakness. I saw it, too, Kurapika's weakness. You probably believed I should have taken that chance, betray him, and free you._

'I'm the head of the Spider, you are its legs. My orders have priority. But my life doesn't have priority. The group is always first before the individual.'

But you should know by now, Kuroro, I did not simply join the Spider. I followed you.

You are my weakness.

I'm sorry…  
  
She pulled the trigger. 

-FIN-


End file.
